Farming community in the country in general and Telangana State in particular is saying no to male calves. Their reason? It is unproductive, a burden and of no use in the farm sector, more so after mechanization of farm operations.
Add to that an acute shortage of grazing fields for the cattle to graze in the open. Against this backdrop farmers are preferring only female cattle, as they provide milk and add to their income.
Artificial insemination
Earlier, dairy farmers preferred artificial insemination of their cattle. But following the birth of a majority of male calves they are worried about their maintenance.
In order to encourage milk production, the Central government, under the National Mission on Bovine Productivity had sanctioned a Sexed Sorted Semen Production Facility at the Frozen Semen Bull Station (FSBS) here. The Project Sanctioning Committee of Rashtriya Gokul Mission (RGM) had sanctioned the project to FSBS in the town with an outlay of ₹ 47.5 crore with the Centre and State sharing it in 60:40 ratio.
The Centre had sanctioned Sexed Sorted Semen Production facilities to eight States, including Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Telangana, Kerala, Maharashtra and Punjab and the Central Frozen Semen Production and Training Institute (CFSP&TI), in Bengaluru in Karnataka with an outlay of ₹ 47.5 crore each.
Further, the Centre had also sanctioned production of embryos by In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) of cattle and also surrogacy of the cattle at a cost of ₹ 5.83 crore. The cattle IVF facility would be set up at PV Narasimha Rao Telangana Veterinary University, Hyderabad.
Semen sexing
“The Central government had started this novel concept of semen sexing project to only deliver female calves to increase milk production by dairy farmers. Officials would supply sex sorted quality semen with ‘x’ chromosome to get only female progenies after artificial insemination,” said Karimnagar MP B. Vinod Kumar, who was instrumental in getting these two projects to Telangana.
Chairman of the Telangana State Livestock Development Agency (TSLDA) Ch. Rajeshwara Rao said the FSBS in Karimnagar town would be upgraded for production of sexed semen using sperm sorter for propagation of elite germplasm of indigenous cattle and buffalo. They would start production of sorted semen from second year after establishment of the plant and ensure that every year eight lakh doses of semen are produced for supplying to the entire State to increase milk production.
